Call for constitutional review

Friday 25 January 2008 00:02 BST

A leading think-tank has called on Prime Minister Gordon Brown to consider establishing a review of how England is governed.

The Institute for Public Policy Research urged the Prime Minister to follow in the footsteps of Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander - who was involved in the creation of the multi-party Scottish Constitutional Commission to re-examine the devolution settlement.

The IPPR said Mr Brown should consider such a move as it published two reports looking at the current constitutional arrangements.

In one of these leading academic Professor John Curtice warned that there are "clearly cracks in the foundations of the current constitutional settlement".

And Guy Lodge, a senior research fellow at the IPPR, said people south of the border were "beginning to wake up to the anomalies created by devolution and want something done about them". He said: "This does not yet amount to a backlash against the Union, nor does there appear to be any serious support for radical policies like an English Parliament.

"But it does suggest the need for the Government to address the position of England within the Union as part of their plans for further constitutional reform if it is to prevent dissatisfaction within England growing."

In his report Prof Curtice said that the SNP's election victory in May last year did not signal a long-term increase in support for independence.

And while he said it seemed England "remains relatively uninterested in devolution for itself", he added: "At the same time there are clearly cracks in the foundations of the current constitutional settlement."

Prof Curtice, of Strathclyde University in Glasgow, continued: "Voters in Scotland seem to want the Scottish Parliament to be more powerful. Meanwhile people in England find having Scottish MPs voting on 'English laws' is a source of irritation at least.

"If both these situations were to be addressed the Union might still be intact, but Scotland and England would certainly look as though they were increasingly going their own separate ways."